Monday, August 1, 2016

I just thought I would share with you the curtains I whipped up recently using Magic Drape eyelet curtain fabric. I have to say this was the easiest curtain I have ever made and the results are wonderful. The eyelet fabric is really nicely finished and I went with a triple weave fabric which is really good for blocking out the sun. The curtains only took me a couple of hours to finish.

You can see from my before and after curtain views I went from a wooden pole with wooden rings and the curtain suspended from hooks on a curtain tape. The old curtain was three pieces and had a separate lining sewn onto the back to make it dark enough. I like dark blue curtains but in the before version because my old set were too short for the space (I underestimated) I ended up filling the space with a repurposed curtain from somewhere else.

Before View

You can see from the after view I kept the same kind of colour scheme but this time with a clean simple metal pole (no rings or hooks) and an eyelet topped curtain.

After View

You can see the main problems with the old curtain here: light gaps and hooks falling off the rings which is a continuous battle.

Before View

The new eyelet top slides open really well and sits neatly both open and closed.

After View

Here's a few handy tips I can share: I went with about twice the length of the space as my fabric purchase. My space was 220cm and I got 450cm of fabric. But the little extra was necessary to match up the eyelets. The very helpful assistant at Spotlight said her biggest tip with this fabric is to make sure you have an even number of eyelets on each curtain. By that I mean for my curtains I had 10 eyelets on each of the two drops. This allowed me to create perfect 'waves' of curtain that started and ended at the wall so all of the back of the curtain is hidden when it is hung in place. The small extra fabric I got in 450cm allowed me to get 20 eyelets (10 each drop) and I only had about 35cm left over.
The fabric comes in about a 240cm drop. I don't like floor length curtains but I also don't like the light coming in under the curtains. So I went with a drop to just below the height of the bed in the room (190cm). This allows excellent blackout by keeps the floor clear of the carpet. I also added four weights to the bottom corners of the curtains to assist drape. I just used some mid-sized hardware washers covered in interfacing and stitched these into the bottom seam of the curtain.
I am also going to add a handy tip I saw in an old book. I am going to get two stick-on wall hooks and attach them down low on the outer edge of each window area and then attach a little plastic ring to the back of the curtain. This will allow me to secure the outer edge of the curtain against the wall to stop the tiny bit of light at the edges.
The eyelet fabric moves really well along the metal pole set I got and I followed someone else tip which was to get the biggest diametre pole set that fits the rings to ensure a strong curtain and also to limit light.

I got the Magic Drape eyelet fabric and pole set I used from Spotlight on sale and it is a really great result. I am already keen to replace all my curtains with the same effect. No more annoying hooks coming off curtain rings and no more dusty wood poles and rings for me.